


Press Play

by elle_stone



Series: Press Play [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe Season 3, Angst, Ark Flashbacks, M/M, Mostly implied Jasper/Monty, Mostly past Miller/Bryan, Non-Chronological, Season 1 Flashbacks, Season/Series 03, the Miller/Bryan/Monty/Jasper love square no one asked for featuring obscure rare pairs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 22:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7333528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/elle_stone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>All Monty says is, "We need to talk about Jasper.”</i>
</p><p>  <i>So that's how it's going to be. Miller sits back on his heels, crosses his arms too and tilts up his chin. “Yeah? What about him? Last I heard you two weren’t even speaking.” Jasper wasn’t exactly spilling secrets last night, but it’s hard not to notice when two people, attached at the hip for as long as he’s known them, suddenly break all ties. He doesn’t have to ask why. He knows; everyone knows.</i> </p><p>  <i>Because he’s watching Monty carefully, he sees it: the half-second’s flinch, like a reflex. There and gone.</i></p><p>  <i>It gives Miller about one half-second’s worth of satisfaction. Still, Monty’s tone is set. He’s probably practiced this speech, purposefully maybe, or just obsessively, and he’ll talk right over anything, buoyed by self-righteousness. “I saw him coming from your quarters this morning,” he says. “You don’t know what you’re getting into with him.” </i></p><p>  <i>How idiotic. </i><br/> </p><p>Or: A hookup, a breakup, an old friendship, a new start, jealousy, memory, relief: a story told in the echoes and the in-betweens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Press Play

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this early in S3, before we knew anything about Bryan beyond his name and his face, and the personality I imagined for him isn't quite what we got. So he's pretty OOC here. Also, although this fic incorporates events up through 3x04, it otherwise has nothing to do with the S3 plot; I guess it's a semi-AU.
> 
> It's my headcanon that the pink shirt Miller wore at the end of S2 is the same pink shirt that Jasper wore at the beginning of S2 and even though this might not actually be true...I don't care.

PLAY.

 

At some point in his sleep, perhaps while dreaming of the cold silence of stars, pinprick lights in the dark, floating, he rolled his body to the far side of the bed, and half off of it. Now his arm hangs over the side, fingertips grazing the floor, and there’s a pain in the back of his neck where his muscles have twisted and strained. He opens his eyes slowly and blinks away sleep. In his line of vision: low morning glow from the repaired circadian overhead, the back of Jasper’s legs, his feet.

Jasper’s already started to get dressed. No socks or shoes yet, but he’s wearing his jeans from the day before, and—slight flick of the gaze up—he’s in the process of buttoning a shirt. This is not surprising, this turn of events, yet knowing that Jasper woke before him, didn’t disturb him, would have been willing, as far as Miller can tell, to slip away without a word, seems to settle an unasked question of the night before in a disconcerting, disappointing way.

His head hurts too much for this.

Slight groan, and he pulls himself up, leans against the headboard, and starts to stretch. The sheet he sleeps under has tangled toward the foot of the bed; it barely covers one of his legs and he considers making a joke about how very underdressed he is—but he doesn’t. It’s Jasper who’s overdressed, and Jasper who wouldn’t appreciate the remark.

The sound of movement makes Jasper turn around, anyway. He’s only buttoned up half of his shirt, so the scar in the middle of his chest is not only visible now but framed, prominent— _ugly_ , Jasper had said, _it’s fine, you don’t have to pretend it’s not there_.

Miller doesn’t give him a chance to speak. “Morning,” he says, fast, before he can over think; as if this were normal, and they did this all the time. As if he did this all the time. In truth, he’s always been more talk than action, more bark than bite. Ten months of distance-imposed celibacy wasn’t conducive to one night stands, after all. He’s a thief but he’s no cheat.

“Did I wake you?” Jasper asks. He doesn’t sound apologetic, but he doesn’t sound dead either. Miller hopes he isn’t imagining that bit of old-Jasper tone he thinks he hears, nervous-energy mixed with concern.

“No.” He tilts his head to one side, then the other, the persistent nagging pain still bothering him. Then, instead of saying, _you could have_ , he points in the vague direction of Jasper’s shoulder and says, “That’s my shirt.”

“It was mine first,” Jasper counters, takes a step to close the space between them, and sits down on the edge of the bed. “And I can’t find the one I was wearing last night, so consider this me taking it back.” He tugs at the end of it, looking down as if examining it. Truly, it’s an awful pink color, and its bizarre discoloration looks stranger in the dim artificial Ark light than it did in the artificial underground light of the Mountain. Or maybe it’s Jasper who makes it look strange, Jasper and his bruised-up tired face, Jasper and his shorn-off hair, Jasper and his restless fingers.

Maybe he’s remembering.

“Why do you still have this, anyway?”  Jasper doesn’t sound puzzled; he sounds like he’s ready for a fight, one that Miller won’t give him.

“Why do you still have the clothes you were wearing that day?” he answers instead. He doesn’t have to ask _if_ Jasper still has them; he hasn’t seen them, he can’t really be certain, but still he just _knows_ , a gut instinct, that like the rest of the Forty-Two, he’s kept them as a macabre souvenir.

There’s no point in answering, so only long silence follows, less uncomfortable than Miller thought it would be. His thoughts wander, and settle, finally, on an idle question: what would happen if he reached out and tried to take Jasper’s hand? Is that the sort of thing one does, in situations like this? Would Jasper pull away? Would he find it odd, or intrusive?

A mumble of words breaks his train of thought. His hands stay in his lap.

“So don’t expect the shirt back.”

He glances over, and Jasper glances up. He looks, surprisingly, uncertain—like maybe— _don’t assume_ —he was considering reaching out too.

“Just take it.”

“Maybe I will.”

(What Miller doesn’t know: Jasper is hearing Monty’s voice, following their refrain, is waiting for _maybe you should_.)

Miller just smiles, giving up, thinking to himself: this is _stupid_ , holding back is so _stupid_ , and sits up and leans in and pulls Jasper in for a kiss. His hand at the back of Jasper’s neck, fingers sliding through his short hair, holds him in place. He’s not rough, but he’s not gentle either. This is a no-hiding kiss, an everything-on-the-line kiss, and Jasper leans into it, too, breathes into it, lets go.

 

STOP

REWIND.

 

Like the rest of the Farm Station survivors, Bryan has been assigned quarters of his own in one of the newly erected buildings beyond Alpha Station. But he’s spent every night since his arrival in Miller’s bed. This narrow single-person space was never meant for two, but neither of them cares; they got used to sleeping crushed together, tangled together, one on top of the other, ages ago, and those habits return easily, effortlessly. It is no hardship at all to hold each other close. Easier to do so, even, than to say in words what Miller finds himself thinking every night, a constant midnight refrain: _I’ll never lose you again. I’ll never lose you again_.

Within a week, they’re both using the term _our quarters_ , and the space is starting to feel like their home.

It’s not quite fair to say they’ve picked up where they left off. They’ve changed—both of them, in too many ways; this can’t be ignored. But sometimes they find moments where the last ten months fall away, by some strange magic trick of memory, or sense memory, and they could be floating far above the surface of the Earth again, caught up again in that sudden first-love that so overcame them the moment they met.

They talk about the Ark often, the present sometimes, and their months apart, almost never.

When Miller gets off shift, he returns home to find Bryan sitting on the bed and flipping through a book of old maps. He leans in for a kiss—what an old married couple habit, really, how _hi honey I’m home_ —then takes off his jacket and unholsters his gun. “Trying to figure out where we are?”

“Trying to figure out where we’ve been.” Bryan sighs, closes the book and tosses it off to the side. “We were never that far away from each other, you know? Not when you think how much land is out there.”

“Yeah?” Miller never cared much for geography. He can’t remember the last time he looked at a map not labeled into sectors. “You think we’ll ever see the rest of it? Like,” he toes off his boots and then sits down too, his arm immediately sliding around Bryan’s shoulders, pulling him into the space against his side where he’s always fit so well, “like the ocean? The beach? That’s what I most want to see.”

Bryan huffs, not a laugh, not mean, and pulls at the end of Miller’s shirt until it’s properly untucked. His hand slides up and under it, thumb brushing absently against the skin of Miller’s side. “And what would you do at the beach?”

“Learn to swim.” He grins. This has been one of his favorite fantasies for a long time, and the images of beautiful beaches and clear blue waters rise up quickly right before his eyes. “And surf. And snorkel.”

“I don’t think ‘snorkel’ is a word.”

Miller can’t see Bryan’s face, but he can imagine his skeptical expression and it makes him laugh. “It is! It’s when you swim underwater with that mask-thing on your face.”

“Mmmm, sounds fake.” He sounds like he’s smiling too, and without arguing any more, he presses a random kiss to Miller’s chest and then slides, somehow, closer. This is one of those moments that feels easy and right, as familiar as the old Ark walls around them. Miller closes his eyes and tries to memorize it, capture it. He feels in his gut how fragile it is, how fragile these moments always are; he does what he can to sustain them and to force down the unease they always bring, a bitter foretaste, a this-can’t-last pessimism.

“You see anything on patrol?” Bryan mumbles into his shirt, startling him out of his wandering half-thoughts.

“Hmmm? Oh, no.” Squeeze of the shoulder, then his fingers wander up into Bryan’s hair. “Everything’s still calm out there.”

“That won’t last.”

“Hey, I’ll take it as long as we can get it.”

Bryan snorts, quiet and half-under his breath, but audible, and then rolls so he's on his back, head in Miller's lap, looking up. “Never thought you’d be so naïve. We can’t just rely on it staying calm forever. I’m certainly not.”

“Yeah, and what are you planning to do? March out against the Grounders all by yourself?” He’s putting some not inconsiderable effort into sounding light, forcing the conversation to remain casual, and he’s put off by how little Bryan seems to appreciate or even notice the attempt.

“No. I’m just saying that when there’s a Grounder army outside Arkadia, I won’t be surprised. I’ll be ready to go out there.” Bryan takes one of Miller’s hands in his own, linking their fingers together, but his gaze is distant, looking out past Miller’s shoulder to some far-off battlefield only he can see.

“Do you even know how to use a gun?”

The question sounds more derisive than he’d intended, and of course it was a stupid one. He can’t blame Bryan for the way he glares.

“Yes. How do you think we survived four months out there?” He drops Miller’s hand and sits up, face hidden and back to him now, shoulders slightly hunched. “You don’t know the shit we saw. We hadn’t been on the ground more than a few hours before they started killing the children. They were brutal. Maybe you just don’t understand and that’s why you don’t take it seriously.”

“ _I_ don’t understand?” That’s it, that’s all it takes. His back snaps straight, a defense instinct; he tries to lean in. “Fuck—which one of us is wearing a guard’s uniform right now?” He’s not sure which accusation stings the worst, that he doesn’t know what Grounders are like or that he doesn’t take threats seriously, but something—maybe just the tone of Bryan’s voice, maybe the way he’s turned his back—has snapped something inside Miller and rage, like bile, is rising in his throat. “Do you want to know what I’ve seen? Hey, look at me.” He grabs at Bryan’s shoulder, tugs until he’s twisted around again, facing him, until they’re staring at each other again. “I saw Clarke and Finn bring Jasper’s body back to our camp with a giant hole in his chest from one of their spears. I heard him moaning in pain for _days_ after that. I saw my friends _killed_ brutally and then I had to tell their parents what happened to them. I saw an army of _four hundred_ Grounders marching on a camp of barely eighty of us. We had to close the dropship door on some of our own just in the _hope_ that our last ditch plan would work and they wouldn’t kill us all. And where were you during all of that? Where were you?” He slams his hand back against the wall, hard enough to make the metal clang. “In this tin can floating in space.”

Bryan jumps at the sound, which should make Miller feel guilty, should remind him perhaps that he’s being just the slightest bit unfair: Bryan wasn’t on the dropship because Bryan was a law-abiding citizen. Bryan knew how to act up without breaking the law. And all he got in return was a dying station, a treacherous journey to the ground, nothing but war and death to greet him when he arrived. But still Miller feels like he’s lived a lifetime here and that his boyfriend is only a newcomer, naïve, dangerously single-minded. He does not apologize, nor back down.

“We’re not playing who’s seen worse,” Bryan spits, standing up now, stepping away so that the distance between them grows. “Why aren’t you on my side on this?”

Miller opens his mouth to say _I’m always on your side_ but what comes out instead is, “Because I’m tired of fighting,” yelled as if it were an accusation, as if he meant _fighting you_ instead of _fighting them_. And maybe he does.

Bryan just stares at him. He doesn’t say anything for a very long time. Miller used to think he knew Bryan better than anyone, used to think he could read any expression, take at least a fair stab at guessing any thought. But now the true distance between them is asserting itself, too vast, too real, and he wonders not if Bryan has changed but how much. He wonders: who is this person, with whom he once shared so much?

Finally, Bryan answers, in a hard voice like a stranger’s, giving nothing: “Then maybe you should figure out what you do want.” He walks to the door, grabs his jacket, and is gone. The sound of the door sliding shut feels like a punch in the gut and leaves Miller reeling for a long time after, for much longer than he’d ever admit.

 

STOP.

FAST-FORWARD.

 

The hallways around the commons are always crowded in the morning, too many people hoping for breakfast or at least something to drink, but it doesn't matter. Monty sees him right away. He sees the shock of pink, bright and out of place amid the blacks and blues and greys most of the Arkers wear, and he feels, in the same moment, a sudden trigger of sense-memory. It takes him sharply out of himself and leaves him, for a half-second, underneath the Mountain again. He stops—disorientated—someone bumps into him from behind—he hears his own voice, from far away, mumble an apology—then he's off through the crowd, not thinking.

He reaches Jasper just before he turns a corner and yanks at his shoulder so hard he almost topples. Jasper turns around on his heel, though, rights himself—and now they're staring at each other for the first time in weeks, so close and yet separated by a distance Monty feels he could measure not only in physical space but in time. He's looking at two Jaspers: one too thin and bruised about the eyes, expression unreadable; and one four months younger and his hair in his face, an open book.

Both of them stare back at him and don't say a word.

"What are you wearing?" Monty spits out, finally.

If Jasper finds his tone, which is accusatory and angry and confused all at once, to be strange or out of place, he doesn’t say so. For a long moment, he just stands there. He is completely still and completely silent. Only his eyes flick back and forth over Monty’s face, a too-familiar restless and uncertain gaze. This silence is even more infuriating than that stupid pink shirt, that relic, but just as Monty opens his mouth to say something else, Jasper interrupts.

“So we’re speaking again, are we?” He’s carrying a small bag of nuts, and now he pops two into his mouth, crunching loudly. Then he tips the bag in Monty’s direction and asks, in a mocking version of a cheery tone, “Breakfast?”

“What? No.” He pushes Jasper’s hand back, doesn’t mean to touch him but does, the first time they’ve touched in a long time and enough to make him flinch. He tells himself it’s the whole encounter that’s grating on him. He tells himself that Jasper is trying to get to him. “Do you think this is funny?”

Jasper raises his eyebrows, and lets any hint of amusement in his tone and expression drop away. “Am I laughing? No, Monty, I actually don’t find getting accosted in the middle of the hallway very funny. What is your problem?”

“My problem—” His voice is much too loud. They’re attracting attention now, as they block traffic to the commons: infamous Jasper Jordan and his ex-friend having, apparently, some sort of show-down, and that’s just another irritant. Monty grabs Jasper’s arm and pulls him off to the side. Jasper feigns concern when his breakfast almost spills, and uses this as an excuse to wrench his arm away and to look down at the floor, as if searching. “My problem,” Monty says again, this time his voice a low hiss, “is you. What is _wrong_ with you? What are you trying to do—are you trying to pretend you’re back there? Are you incapable of moving on or do you just not want to?”

He only realizes how cruel he sounds after the words are said and gone, but he’s not sure he’d take them back even if he could. He’s still breathing too fast, one hand clenching into a fist, aching, whole body tilted just a little too much into Jasper’s space. And Jasper’s become too adept at hiding what hurts. If he thinks Monty’s crossed a line, he won’t say it. As Monty watches, he lets his weight fall against the wall, leans heavily on it, and crosses one ankle over the other. He stares down at their shoes, and Monty stares at his eyelashes, his cheekbones, the slope of his nose. Details of Jasper’s face he’s never noticed before.

“It’s just a shirt,” Jasper says, finally. “I just needed something to wear to get from Miller’s quarters,” he tilts his head back to the hallway behind him, “to mine,” then forward, nodding to the hallway behind Monty. Then he catches Monty’s eye again and adds, like a dare, “Unless you think I should have worn nothing. Maybe show off this scar, since it’s so _cool_ and _impressive_ —”

Monty shakes his head, shakes the words free. He won’t himself get distracted, just focuses in on the one bit he really heard. “What were you doing in Miller’s quarters?”

This time Jasper does laugh, but there’s no joy in it. “What do you think?” he asks, as he stands up straight again, just before he walks away.

 

STOP.

REWIND.

 

Clarke clears Jasper to leave the dropship, not because he is really better, but because he’s learned how to pretend he doesn’t feel the pain in his chest anymore.

(He’s not sure he’ll ever be _really better_.)

But he’s glad to be living in the tents now, with the others, so he can be normal and not just _that kid who had a spear thrown through his chest_ , and also so that Monty can finally get some decent sleep again. He’s been up every night by Jasper’s side, swearing that he’s able to drift off and almost certainly lying: he’s always awake when the nightmares come, his hand in Jasper’s hand before Jasper even knows where he is.

And not sleeping isn’t good for him.

There are two beds in the tent, in the very loose sense of the word ‘bed,’ one to the right of the entrance and one to the left. The one to the right is piled high with extra blankets and makeshift bedding, and the one to the left is particularly sparse, even by camp-bed standards. Jasper stands between them, considering.

“Don’t tell you don’t know which one’s yours,” a voice behind him interrupts his thoughts, makes him jump. He half turns and tries to smile as Monty grins at him. His heart’s beating painfully fast from unnatural adrenaline, but when he rubs at his chest, he pretends he’s fine and this is normal. He is _normal_.

“Well, you did get here first, so I’m assuming you claimed this nice one,” he answers, gesturing off to the right, hoping his voice sounds as it should.

Even if it doesn’t, Monty doesn’t notice. “Yeah, right,” he says, and sits down on the sorry looking bed to the left. He still has that big grin on his face, and it takes Jasper a long moment to realize it’s because he’s back, it’s because he’s better.

“So we’re finally sharing quarters,” Jasper says, shoving off his boots and sitting cross-legged on his bed. His heartbeat’s slowed to something like a regular pace again, but he keeps one hand over his chest anyway. “Officially.” He’s pretty sure they’ve spent as many nights sleeping in the same room as not, but they’ve never been actual roommates before. They used to tell their parents all the time that they’d get a place of their own someday, as soon as they were old enough, and it’s a little funny how, among everything that went so not according to plan, on this point at least they were right.

“We were probably the easiest tent to assign,” Monty answers. He’s stretched out on his bed, on his back staring up, but after a long pause, he turns to look at Jasper again. “You okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Clarke cleared me, didn’t she?” He drops his hands down to his lap, aware he might look a little suspicious.

“Clarke doesn’t know how good you are at lying.”

Jasper doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t want to say anything to that, so he’s silent. He stares down at his hands and pretends he can’t feel Monty watching him.

“Look, if you bring girls back to the tent, you need to warn me beforehand, because I really don’t want to walk in on anything.”

The words come out of nowhere, but are said with a completely straight face, and Jasper’s half-certain that he spaced out completely for a moment there and that’s why he’s missed out on the context. He takes a few seconds to try to work it out, then just gives up: “When have I ever brought a girl anywhere?” (The answer is never, but not for lack of trying.)

Monty doesn’t blink. “Now you have a story about how you defied death, and an impressive scar to show for it. Girls like that sort of thing.”

“I feel like that plan would work better if everyone in camp _hadn’t_ heard me making dying animal noises for three days straight in the dropship. It’s not exactly sexy,” he answers, with a slight roll of the eyes and a half-smile, like it doesn’t bother him. He _is_ an excellent liar, but Monty is excellent at reading him. He doesn’t try very hard to be convincing. In the pause that follows, his smile falters, and he admits: “I don’t even know what the scar looks like. I think it’s still probably a wound, actually.”

At least, it hurts like one.

When he looks up again, Monty is just staring. And Jasper’s sure, all of a sudden, that he knows everything, which is both embarrassing and a relief.

And when Monty’s by his side again, one arm around him, holding him, it mostly just feels like home.

“You want to see what it looks like?” Monty asks him, quietly, after several long moments. His voice is gentle, but not in that patronizing _are you sure you’re all right, Jasper?_ way some of the others have. It’s more a reassuring sound; no question in it, just statement: _you are safe_.

He answers with a shaky, “Yeah,” and pulls away just enough to take his arms out of his jacket and then, with a hesitation he can’t control, to pull off his shirt. In the middle of his chest and to the right, between his lungs and away from his heart, is the clean bandage Clarke placed over the spear’s entry point before she sent him on his way: _just in case_ , she said, _so it doesn’t get infected again_. Jasper detaches the tape at the corner carefully, then looks over at Monty’s face; he’d rather gauge his reaction than see the damage himself.

(It does not occur to him that Monty, by his side unceasingly from the moment he was carried through the dropship door, has already seen it, and worse.)

Monty is stoic, so Jasper feels brave, and after a long moment he forces himself to look down. There is a gash in his chest, red and ugly, open, but clean, only the slightest pink around the edges. He stares at it a long time. He does not notice that Monty’s free hand is holding his free hand.

At first, staring at the wound makes him feel sick; a rolling feeling washes up in his stomach, and it feels like he imagines being sea sick feels, but it’s his own body that makes him react this way, it’s this knowledge that there is a hole in him now, and it’s never going to go away.

“So—what do you think?” he asks at last, voice cracking open too, and too quiet. Monty squeezes his hand. “Ugly or cool?”

“Really cool,” Monty answers. “Like I told you: it will heal, and then you’ll have a scar to show off.”

Jasper makes a quiet noise, something like a hum, thoughtful and not quite credulous. The corner of his mouth turns up in an almost-smile. "Sure," he says. He wants to believe it. "It'll be great."

 

STOP.

REWIND.

 

It's almost impossible to get into the Unity Day Dance if you're under fourteen—older kids block the entrance; parents get nervous—but they managed it last year at thirteen anyway. Monty's Unity Juice experiment helped. So did what Jasper is starting to refer to as their 'rep.' And if the next day Monty had to stay in his room with the lights off and his eyes closed and tell his parents he had a 'headache' and Jasper had to claim a sudden short bout of 'the flu,' that was okay: part of the _experience_ , Jasper pointed out, the aftermath of another _exploit_.

It does make getting out this year a little bit more difficult, however. Jasper's parents in particular, though the sort to remind their son all the time that _we know how it is, we were young once too_ , are, beneath the surface, still overprotective like all Ark parents cannot help but be. Maybe more so. They're making excuses trying to keep him in quarters. "I'll make it over eventually," he tells Monty, when he shows up at the Jordans' door. "Just go on without me, we'll meet up."

With some reluctance, Monty agrees.

In truth, Monty’s not sure what to do at a dance by himself, and within ten minutes he’s started to feel both a little too sober and a little too solitary. Two people jostle him, first one then the other: the second is just about the last straw. He finds himself a spot mostly out of the way, and with a good view of the entrance, and then reaches for one of the vials in his pocket. It’s probably best not to be carrying contraband on his person for too long anyway. The cadets who work the dance turn a blind eye to a lot of things but he’s not risking the Sky Box for something so dumb.

His hand’s still in his pocket when he feels a tap on his shoulder, and jumps.

But—not a cadet—that’s one potential crisis averted.

There's a boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen, standing behind him. His eyes are obscured by a gray mask but he's smiling in a friendly, easy way. There’s something familiar about him but only in the most general of ways, like he’s someone Monty’s seen in the hall, maybe, or maybe in class but years ago. “Hey,” the boy says. “You waiting for someone?”

“Um—sort of,” he admits, and takes his hand out of his pocket again. _Just act natural_.

The boy tilts his head. “Someone who would be jealous if I asked you to dance?”

Monty’s first thought is, bizarrely, **_would_** _Jasper be jealous?_ , and it’s only after a long moment has passed, and the boy’s smile has faltered, and he looks on the verge of apology and retreat, that Monty even gets around to thinking, _he’s asking me to dance_. No one’s ever asked him to dance before. It’s a bit of a stretch to say he’d even know how, but the boy is handsome, as far as Monty can tell with the mask in the way, and the question is flattering, and the moment is oddly exciting. Suddenly he’s quite certain that he wants to say yes.

“Yes—I mean—no, no one who would be jealous. So, are you asking?”

The boy—Bryan, as he introduces himself—just grins and holds out his hand.

The music is manic electronica, perfect for dancing erratically, badly, and also it’s early yet: most people are still more interested in having fun now than in who they'll sneak off with when the night ends. He and Bryan are no different. It's more fair to say that they're dancing across from each other than with each other, but that's fine. The whole situation's still more than a little intimidating anyway. And it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be; some people are just friendly; some people just want to be nice to younger kids they see standing alone and looking, maybe, nervous or lonely; some boys don't mean anything when they use words like _jealous_ ; some guys just smile a lot, in general, to anyone—it doesn't mean a thing.

The longer the music goes on, the closer they get (but it's just the push of other bodies around them, just more people arriving and wanting to dance, and if his face feels hot it's just the crowd, still, just the suffocating space). He does not jump when he feels Bryan's hands at his hips. He moves closer. It feels all right, good, new—though, or because, he's never been this close, like this, with anyone. Bryan's body is unfamiliar and strange as Monty's hands move up his arms, then to his shoulders.

He won't let himself ask _so is he going to kiss me?_ because it seems a completely absurd thought, impossible right up until the moment when he is. And then the question just seems silly. Why think in advance about something so simple? Just a tilt of the head, a leaning in, and then a press of lips to lips. For a moment, Monty freezes. Then he kisses back. It’s awkward, first too tentative then too harsh, like they don’t know how to match each other, and he doesn’t know if it’s because they’re strangers and can’t read each other, or if this is how all first kisses are. When Bryan pulls back, though, he’s smiling. So it’s probably the second. That’s why people always try again.

The music switches and slows. Some of the crowd groans, but the couples all move closer; they know the next few minutes are for them. Bryan nods off to the side and asks, “Do you wanna—?” but before the question’s even fully formed, Monty answers, “No.”

He’s fine staying right here.

He's fine moving closer too. Most of the people still on the floor aren't really dancing now anyway, they're just swaying, and Monty feels a little silly but soon they're just swaying too. This is probably something you can only do on Unity Day _—unity_ day, there seems like there should be a stupid Jasper joke in there somewhere—hide your eyes and meet some vaguely familiar stranger who's wearing a mask too, feel the masks click together as you kiss, slightly annoying, rather fitting, just like every other imperfection in the moment (like how there are too many people, how his palms sweat, how he's not sure where to put his hands) that will probably fade away, later, in memory. This is what Jasper would call an _experience_ , and it's thrilling. A feeling that masquerades as confidence fills him—accidental bump of nose, flash of tongue, not even bothering to sway now—and he finds he doesn't care to think what will happen when the song ends.

 

STOP.

FAST-FORWARD.

 

Miller would like to say he is particularly observant, but in fact he notices that something is off about the wall only by chance. Guard shifts spent patrolling inside the gate are _painfully_ boring, and his mind often wanders; today the problem is particularly bad. So it’s no more than pure, random coincidence that he happens to glance over to the left at just the moment he does, and then that he happens to notice there’s a bolt missing where a certain panel of scrap metal attaches to the other panels of scrap metal that make up the Arkadia wall. He walks over, kneels down to investigate. When he pulls at the corner where the bolt should be, he feels it start to give, and with slightly more force he’s able to wrench it down and free.

Interesting.

Beyond the gate, because it is definitely a gate, he can see grass; trees, their leaves moving slightly with the gentlest of breeze; sky just a little less pale than the one above him—and suddenly Arkadia seems like a prison. Suddenly he is in prison again.

And what if he just left, what then?

He’s so lost in this thought that he doesn’t hear the footsteps approaching him. His name, spoken from somewhere much too close and just above him, makes him jump out of his skin, and surprise turns to annoyance so quickly that he doesn't even notice the tone of the voice, how harsh it is, how it rings with accusation.

"Monty, what the fuck?" he snaps, rubbing the heel of his hand against his heart and scowling up into the sun. At this angle, it's blinding and obscures Monty's face. He's still recognizable though, in outline, and when he shifts his weight from one foot to the other he blocks the glare and Miller can make out his expression at last: annoyed, combative, set for a fight. His arms are crossed tight against his chest. "Don't sneak up on me like that."

All Monty says is, "We need to talk about Jasper," as if that were any sort of answer.

So that's how it's going to be. Miller sits back on his heels, crosses his arms too and tilts up his chin. “Yeah? What about him? Last I heard you two weren’t even speaking.” Jasper wasn’t exactly spilling secrets last night, but it’s hard not to notice when two people, attached at the hip for as long as he’s known them, suddenly break all ties. He doesn’t have to ask why. He knows; everyone knows.

Because he’s watching Monty carefully, he sees it: the half-second’s flinch, like a reflex. There and gone.

It gives Miller about one half-second’s worth of satisfaction. Still, Monty’s tone is set. He’s probably practiced this speech, purposefully maybe, or just obsessively, and he’ll talk right over anything, buoyed by self-righteousness. “I saw him coming from your quarters this morning,” he says. “You don’t know what you’re getting into with him.”

How idiotic.

“I _know_ Jasper,” he answers, but before he can say the rest ( _after last night, I know him better than you ever will_ ), Monty snaps back at him, irritated:

“No. You knew him in Mount Weather. How much time have you spent with him since then? How can you _possibly_ —do you know about this gate?” He gestures, short and sharp, to the hole in the Arkadia wall.

There’s no fast retort to that. What can he say? He won’t admit that he feels like Monty is reading his mind, and he won’t break Monty’s gaze, and he won’t stand up, and make this conversation mean more than it should.

“It’s his,” Monty continues, in the same sharp tone. “He used it to break out on the day of the Mount Weather memorial. He _stole Finn’s ashes_ from Abby and he scattered them at the dropship. But not before he passed out drunk on the grass for hours. And he would have done all of it without anyone knowing if I hadn’t followed him. He’s—he’s _sick_.” The last word, quiet but sharp, hissed out as if pulled from the center of him, a secret everybody knows, hits harder than Miller thought it would. He puts one hand on the gate, feels the rough grain of rusting metal beneath his fingers, and bites back the bile he feels rise at the thought of Jasper, another thief, sneaking out with the burned ash of one of their own. He’s almost ready to concede, but then Monty adds, still quiet, but more accusatory, harsh: “He doesn’t need you doing this to him,” and Miller feels his body go tense, on the defensive again.

He waits one beat, then two, to collect himself, but his words still come out clipped and short when he asks: "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you’re using him." Monty's stare is hard and unwavering, and his voice is cold. "As your rebound. When he realizes he's just a one-night stand—it might break him. Worse than he already is."

Miller's jaw clenches tight. There's a fist of anger in his stomach, because here is Monty Green towering over him, Monty lecturing him, Monty who thinks he knows everything. Monty, the Jasper expert. Monty, who knows nothing about _him_ , who dares to talk about, to even _reference_ Bryan—

He wants to stand up, shove him, start a fight: an adolescent impulse.

But all he says: "He's not a rebound." The words are quiet and low, like a threat.

"Oh—sorry—so you and Bryan _didn't_ break up two weeks ago?" Monty quips in return, and Miller rises up to his feet. Monty leans back, away from him, but doesn't retreat. "What do _you_ call fucking someone new right after leaving your boyfriend?"

"I call it _you should mind your own business_."

"Jasper is my business!"

For a moment, after this quiet explosion, they do no more than stare. It takes a moment to settle. Then Miller’s mouth quirks up at the corner, and Monty’s shoulders fall. Miller steps into his space. He lets his voice sink low, no more than a gruff murmur, and won’t let Monty ignore his gaze. “Not,” he says, “anymore.”

It’s the sort of bullshit dramatic answer he might regret later, but in the moment, it’s deeply satisfying, and more than worth the way Monty flinches, worth the way his own blood has risen to his ears. He stoops again, just for a moment, to yank the piece of scrap metal back into place; the scrape-clang of Jasper’s gate closing is just the right sort of punctuation. He feels unduly confident as he rests his hand on his gun, starts to stride away.

“You think you can handle him,” Monty’s voice calls after him; one last volley, it seems to rise up, and up. It carries after him.

 _Don’t turn around, don’t look at him, don’t let him know you’ve even heard_.

“But you can’t!”

 

STOP.

REWIND.

 

The truly incomprehensible thing about the fight was that it came out of nowhere and then completely decimated _everything_.

“Yeah,” Jasper sighs. “I know how that goes.”

He’s been letting Miller talk for a while, without interrupting, without seeming even to be listening, so the sudden response now is startling. Miller looks up, raises his eyebrows because yes, Jasper does know too well how something that seems perfect and pre-destined can be both suddenly and predictably destroyed—he opens his mouth to answer, thinks better of it, and only sighs too, an echo. He taps his empty glass against the table. The evenings are getting longer now, lighter and warmer, drawing people outside, and the commons are almost deserted. Just Jasper, and Miller himself, and a few other stragglers and discontents, a few other antisocial introverts left.

Bryan’s probably out there. And Miller doesn’t want to talk to him, doesn’t want to see him, or think about him, or acknowledge him. He’s done. Time to move on. This is it.

Except—“It’s not that I wasn’t expecting a fight—I was—but the _way_ it happened…” He trails off, shaking his head. “We were fine—you know, by our standards—?”

Jasper takes a long drink from his flask, nods as he swallows. Yeah, he knows. He’s staring out into the middle distance, but he’s listening, Miller’s pretty sure.

“Just hanging out and talking about…shit, I don't know, the beach? Snorkeling?”

Jasper snorts, but if he smiled, too, even for a second, the expression is gone by the time Miller glances over to him. The faraway look is back in his eyes.

“One moment it felt like old times—”

“Old times,” Jasper mutters, down to the floor, a faint mocking echo.

“And then the next—we were having one of _those_ fights. The kind you can’t recover from. And why? I don’t even know, it was like… I let down my guard and it just crept up on me.” Yes—that’s it—his shoulders slump with resigned realization. “Isn’t that pathetic? I’ve had my guard up with him the entire time he’s been back. It’s not supposed to be like that.”

“Mmmm,” Jasper answers, which could be no answer, just a placeholder, and Miller’s just about to start talking again, when: “Yeah. Not when you’re in love.”

It’s the first time he’s heard Jasper say the word ‘love’ in a long time. And it stops him up short. For a second, he has a vision of them: Jasper actually looking at him, nodding along as he listens, as Miller tells him what he has not yet admitted—that the fight was their last fight, but not their last meeting, not quite the end. That they avoided each other for two days, and slept apart for two nights. That when they spoke again it was by the fire pit, late at night when the rest of camp was asleep, night patrol moving like shadows, or the ghosts of their dead, at the perimeter, and the last frost of the season crunching underfoot. That they talked around the words 'it's over' for a long time. That they held hands, that their knees touched. That he was glad for the dark, because if he could have seen Bryan's face, he would have lost his nerve. That when he thinks about it now, the conversation, the moment of walking away, he feels sick.

He considers saying all of this. But instead, he just gestures toward the flask and asks, “Can I have some of that?”

“Mmmmm—no.” Jasper holds the flask up and makes an exaggerated rattling motion, so Miller can hear the last of the liquid sloshing up against the sides. “Sinclair cut me off. This was all I could get.”

"He cut off _after_ giving you that flask?" Miller crosses his arms against his chest, skeptical, and raises an eyebrow.

Jasper just rolls his eyes, then leans in. Too far in. Into Miller's space like an invasion, so that, just like that, he's _too aware_ of Jasper and it startles something in him. Perhaps Jasper's not quite in control of his body; perhaps he's no longer aware of his boundaries, of space; maybe he's just swinging all the way forward, as easily as he could swing all the way back. But still. He's crossed a line, and suddenly, the mood between them changes. If Miller tipped his head forward, their noses would bump. His breath catches, just a reflex, and he tries to catch Jasper’s eye but he can’t.

“He didn’t _give_ me anything. I took it.”

And for no reason at all—because he has a soft spot for thieves, or for Jasper, or because the phrase just pops randomly into his head—Miller answers, quiet and low: “A man after my own heart.”

Jasper tilts his head to the side thoughtfully, and his gaze slides down. He's staring at Miller's mouth. His eyelashes are very long, his cheekbones very sharp, his face very thin.

"Still," he says, slowly; the words form his decision. "It's not enough." Such an opaque phrase, it could mean anything: it could mean, _this_ is not enough, _we_ are not enough, _like this_ is not enough. Miller feels, like a spark starting at the base of his spine and blazing up, a certain realization, that that is what he wants it to mean. Jasper puts his hand on the top rung at the back of Miller's chair. "Not enough to get drunk on."

"Not enough to get black out drunk," Miller corrects, which is all Jasper does anymore. He finds himself debating whether he should put his fingers beneath Jasper's chin, force his gaze.

"Mmm. Just enough for a buzz."

Is that, Miller wonders, all it takes? Not even that? Maybe he's rusty, maybe he's buzzed too, but he knows what a boy flirting looks like. He remembers how quickly the fight with Bryan changed register, how one moment they were gentle with each other, touching out of long habit, reminding each other of a physicality long lost to them, and how the next they were wounding each other, just to wound. He wonders if the same thing is happening to him again.

"Nate?"

Jasper's voice sounds surprisingly nervous. It hits a note that brings Miller back to another life: a tin-can life, spent breathing tin can air, waiting to suffocate. A quiet cell and a machine hum and four simple gray walls.

"Yeah?"

"I haven't spent the night in my quarters for three days. I don't want to."

Miller nods, the smallest incline of his head and back. He knows something about how that feels, too. "Yeah, well—I could use the company in mine."

 

STOP.

FAST-FORWARD.

 

The first key he tries strikes a discordant note. Not what he wanted; it makes him wince. The sound is too low and too quiet, the creation of a hesitant hand. It came out wrong because the piano is a heavy, underground object, and he touched it too tentatively—that must be it. He does not believe it is out of tune. It may be an artifact of the dead, now, but only a few weeks—a few _months_ ago—

_I don't know how to play, he admitted, fingers settled over smooth, heavy keys—and he thought about how maybe he'd learn, he'd like to learn, and she could teach him—_

_No, neither do I, she answered, with the slightest, lightest, laugh, and his heart—_

 

STOP.

REWI—

 

On his mind now is only one slight, trivial thought: that the boy sitting next to him now was his first kiss, almost (he counts the months on his fingers, under the table) a year and a half ago.

They haven't said a word to each other since Bryan asked, "Mind if I sit?" and Monty answered, "Go ahead." And that's fine. Monty's not up for small talk, not up for thinking either. Outside the afternoon rain has turned into an evening downpour, and around them, pairs and small groups chatter, play board games, work on small and quiet tasks. Arkadia feels very small, tonight.

The past feels very close, too. Maybe it's because, from the corner of his eye, Bryan looks no older than he did on Unity Day. He looks like the boy in the mask, the slightly older, infinitely cooler boy who asked him to dance, who asked him because he was confused, perhaps, and thought Monty was cool, too. From this angle, there's nothing of the beaten-down, the old-before-his-time, the bruised up and spirit-battered young man that Monty knows is really sitting next to him.                              

Or maybe it's because the Ark has been on his mind a lot, recently, ever since Farm Station returned: memories creeping up on him, ambushing him.

He never did meet up with Jasper, the night of the dance, though his friend told him afterward that he did manage to sneak out. Had to promise his parents that he'd stay clean, what all involved must have known was only an empty recitation of words, a hollow ceremony, and when he got there, he ran into one of his Tesla buddies, who had just gotten into dealing low-grade black-market moonshine, and they got a bit distracted. That was fine; Monty had been a bit distracted at the time, too—though that was a secret he kept to himself. And not long afterward the whole party got broken up anyway, by some commotion that seemed, to Monty at the time, no more than the harsh buzz of an alarm waking him from some vague but pleasant dream. He hadn't worried about the details. An arrest, Jasper tried to tell him, that's what it looked like; he couldn't really tell what was going on, but it seemed like some bad shit.

But then, arrests usually are.

For two days after, radio silence from Bryan in the mask. Monty pretended it didn't matter, pretended the gnawing in his stomach was from hunger. And when they found each other again in the library, he still does not know if by chance or design, he kept on pretending: that he was cool, that he did this sort of thing all the time. They fell into uneasy conversation. He learned that Bryan was from Farm Station too—and how funny—how weird that it didn't come up, before.

They both tried to smile, at that.

And he's not sure why, but he smiles a little bit now, too, remembering. Maybe it's funny, how important every look and every word and every almost-touch felt then, and how little they mean now. Maybe it's funny how it was crushing to hear, just a week later, that Bryan had started seeing someone else, given that he feels so hollow now, knowing that that relationship is over and something else is in its place.

"Did they really bring that thing in from Mount Weather?" Bryan asks, so suddenly, and after so long a silence, that Monty startles. He sits up straighter, shakes his thoughts free, and glances over to his left, where Bryan is tilting his head. He means the piano.

Yes, it used to live on Level 5. Generations of Mountain Men played it, sang songs around it, taught their children simple melodies on it, kept it in tune. Nothing like that on the Ark, where their founders never planned for disaster, where no one ever foresaw the end of the world.

“Yeah,” he says now, voice dull, with the slightest shrug. “I don’t know why they bothered.”

He’d be fine if he never saw it again.

He’s half-turned away again, because he’d rather think of anything, almost anything, except Mount Weather, when Bryan tilts his chin up, gesturing to the piano again. “That’s your friend, right?” he asks this time. “Jasper?”

The name startles, like some very ancient ghost from some very ancient past, like a sharp nail poking in a still-open wound. Jasper’s in the commons just about every night, and still somehow Monty did not expect him. It takes a too-long moment to recognize him. He's thinner even than Monty remembered, and the way he moves is different. Slower. Maybe he is the ghost, or maybe he is seeing the ghost too, and that is why he steps so hesitantly, why his gestures are uncertain and delayed.

"Yeah," Monty answers. "Jasper." He won't quite call him a friend, anymore. He can't quite. And he's not sure if Bryan's asking because he really doesn't know or because he's looking for some opening, the start of an awkward conversation. Monty won't give it to him.

_Yeah that's Jasper. Yes, your ex-boyfriend's new fling. Yes, the last person he was with, yes—_

The words taste vile in the back of his throat. But he doesn't turn away. He watches Jasper approach the piano, like prey approaching a sleeping predator, and he wonders if Jasper will break, now, here, at this relic finally. He feels the pinpricks of approaching violence on the back of his own neck.

But Jasper only sits down on the bench and places his fingers over the keys. Presses down too lightly to make any noise. Then with just one finger, taps out a note or two.

"Does he know how to play?" Bryan asks. He's leaning in a little too close, like they're sharing secrets. Hint of surprise in his voice. Not a lot of Arkers had the patience to learn any instruments, when they had to practice on hollow simulators, their music no more than an alien echo of home.

"No. He doesn't."

They are voyeurs. A few other people glance toward Jasper, every now and then, curious, but no one else is watching him like they are. Do the others not know that he's a time bomb? Monty's fingers twitch.

Jasper's head bows and his fingers run over the keys: the smooth white strips, the intermittent raised black bumps. Are his eyes closed? What is he seeing? And does he feel the approach of the person Monty and Bryan see, former prisoner turned young guard, his own hands half-up with slow uncertainty as he takes his gentle steps?

When he places his hands on Jasper's shoulders, Monty expects Jasper will startle, or jump. He doesn't. He deflates. The tension falls from his shoulders, they slump, and slowly he leans back.

Monty hears a quiet _oh_ , almost lost in a sigh, sounding out next to him, and there is a very brief touch of a hand against his hand. Perhaps an accident.

Jasper's hands fall from the keys, down to the piano bench; his back rests against Miller's chest and his eyes, Monty's almost sure now, are closed. Miller's hands slide forward to his chest. They rest one over his heart and the other over his scar. He bows his head down, his nose pressed against Jasper's hair. Jasper reaches up his hands to grab onto Miller's, and Monty knows, Monty just knows he's holding on as tight as he can.

Monty realizes he's holding his breath. He's not sure he'll be able to breathe, really breathe, until they move.

But they stay, just like that, for a very long time.

 


End file.
